On behalf of the clergy, I wish you all a very blessed Easter. We are immensely grateful for your prayers, good wishes, and Easter cards. Fr Ashley, Fr David and I of course thank you for your generous Easter offerings. Sometimes amidst all the backlog and drudgery of work, something
Continue readingLAST SUNDAY JESUS said these words in the gospel reading, to the background of what on-lookers thought was a thunderclap: ‘Now is the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all
Continue readingON FRIDAY Pope Francis began the first ever visit of a pope to Iraq. You can follow his itinerary from the website of our Bishops Conference – Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales (cbcew.org.uk). The pandemic has taught us many things in the last year – provided we’re prepared
Continue readingEvery year in Lent the gospel reading for the second Sunday is always one of the accounts of the Transfiguration of Jesus, depicted here from the church of Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire. This year the account is from the ninth chapter of the gospel of Mark. This event is one
Continue readingI emailed Fr Steve and asked whether I could write a piece for this week’s Newsletter and he enquired what the topic would be. I replied with three words: Lent, Choco-late and Slavery and Fr Steve then replied ‘I have given one of them up – guess which one!’ Two
Continue readingThe words Repent and believe in the Gospel or Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return will be familiar to you. You may consider these refrains used in the liturgy of Ash Wednesday somewhat dispiriting, particularly in the current climate when many of us are almost
Continue readingEach month the pope chooses a special prayer intention to guide all of us in our intercessory prayer. This month his intention is Women who are victims of violence. The Holy Father has produced a special YouTube message for this which you can view here: There is also a special
Continue readingLast week it was announced that Britain had become the first European country to officially reach the ‘sombre milestone’, as one newspaper put it, of more than 100,000 deaths. As tragic and sobering as these grim facts are, and not wishing to minimise or trivialise in any way the devastating
Continue readingAS YOU MAY REMEMBER in this country for over a year now we have been keeping a special Year of the Word of God, entitled The God who Speaks, designed to help Catholics in England and Wales deepen our knowledge of the Bible. The Bishops Conference has developed special resources
Continue readingTHIS SUNDAY, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, marks the end of the Christmas season in our calendar, although like many other churches we keep the crib in place, this year in front of the altar, until the feast of Candlemas at the beginning of next month. This
Continue reading